


Loose Threads

by MargalithS



Category: Trigun
Genre: Backstory, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Obsession, Pre-Series, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Trauma, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-13
Updated: 2019-06-08
Packaged: 2020-01-12 18:13:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18451940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MargalithS/pseuds/MargalithS
Summary: A series of small stand-alones about Legato's pre-series life, from his point of view.  Not necessarily linear.  Mostly gen, but some will have or allude to M/M activity and feelings.





	1. Touch

When I first developed my abilities, I meant no harm to anyone. At that time, I only wished to help myself. I had a simple plan. I would bind them as they bound me, freezing them in their tracks as I walked off with ease, never to be seen again. From there, I would make my own life. I would start over and forget every moment of the sorry excuse for a life I'd lived until that point as if it had been nothing more than a bad dream.

  
That's what I thought. I was so stupid.

  
When I first tested those abilities, I controlled a single man with the intention of experiencing something I'd longed for since I could remember. Before I made my escape, I would taste something of the better life that awaited me beyond the fortress called "New Salò."

  
Two birds, one stone.

  
He was so fucked up at the time, I felt confident he wouldn't remember the night at all, let alone what I did to him - what I made him do. On the off chance he remembered anything, it was still highly unlikely he would even realize his actions were a product of anything other than his own lack of inhibition.

  
He shuffled towards me with a grotesque leer. I attempted to send an impulse to his legs, to get him to sit down beside me. It worked. I suppressed any expression of the victorious feeling that teased at my insides.

  
I sent the next impulse to his arms. I wrapped them around my own body and sat on his knees. I shut my eyes and held my breath. I forced myself to fabricate a mental image of a kinder, cleaner, more prepossessing stranger in his place - someone I had never seen, perhaps a long-lost family member. I moved his hand across the top of my head, across my shoulders, down my spine.

  
A faint warmth spread over me until my body forced me to draw breath. In doing so, I caught his scent - a mixture of sweat, low-quality liquor, and infected sores. With that, those diaphanous feelings of victory and warmth unraveled along with my equally fragile fantasy. Emptiness, sorrow, disgust, hopelessness, and frustration rushed to fill their places. The whole thing felt so cheap - no, not just cheap. Completely and utterly **_worthless._**

  
I never felt well during "visits." More often than not, I'd feel even worse after they were over. However, what I felt that night was a whole new level and breed of sickness. My threads worked, but the task for which I employed them that evening had not. No better life waited for me on the other side of the walls. I would not taste love. No one would love a tainted aberration like myself unless I forced them to.

  
I let him loose and allowed him to do what he came to me for. I stifled my tears and kept my eyes closed, like I always did. This time, the images my mind projected onto the backs of my eyelids were vicious and bloody. I didn't weave them with care like the ones I pictured while controlling him. These surfaced with far more spontaneity. Within them, I saw a much more satisfying escape - a better plan. I would brutalize them as they brutalized me, mocking their helplessness as they tore one another down under my power. Once they were all gone, I would escape, and I would purge the world of their ilk all by myself.

  
That's what I thought. I was so _fucking_ stupid.


	2. Roots of Brutality, Seeds of Self-Destruction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Much shorter than the last one. A teenage Legato reacts poorly to his improving physical health.

Dr. Conrad examines me once every week.

  
I arrived here at Lord Knives' habitat in a most undignified state. I had a gunshot wound in my abdomen, was riddled with parasites and infections, and was severely dehydrated and undernourished. For the first two weeks or so, these examinations took place every day - sometimes more than once per day. While I am grateful for their reduced frequency, I still cannot help but tense up when he has me strip down. My mind cannot help from flooding with memories that drive pathetic tears from my eyes when he pokes and prods. When the Doctor tries to soothe me, it takes everything I have in me not to bite him or wield my threads against him.

  
The worst aspect of these examinations is how he now says I am beginning to "thrive" - to look "normal."

  
I have no idea what he is talking about. Rather, I have no idea why he says these things in such a positive tone. All I see is a loss of control, a sudden change I have no power over, and a frustrating inability to recognize myself in the mirror any longer.

  
I may be "thriving" externally, but internally, I am dying of fear.

  
Emotionally, I still feel like a void. As much as I hate that feeling, I find it ultimately more frustrating that the physical no longer matches the psychical.

  
I don't care to voice any of this to him. I don't want his help. I want _control_ , and I will take it by any means necessary.


	3. Oasis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Young Legato has difficulty keeping up with Knives and Elendira in their travels. This chapter is based directly off of a small series of canon panels - a wordless flashback Legato has shortly before his death in Trigun Maximum. The "camera" shows Legato's POV, he's looking at Knives and Elendira who are walking up ahead of him. Knives turns around looking a bit upset, but then smiles at Legato as he turns back around. It's an interesting little scene and this is my take on it.

My head swam as I struggled to keep up with my new family. This was about my fourth week with them - I'd been with them nearly a month at this point. They were used to being on the move. I was not.

I'd never been particularly healthy, either.

I figured I must have been such a burden on them. I hated myself for it. I loved and always will love Knives, and I am so grateful for everything he's done for me. He said my abilities would be of great use to him "soon", and that once he learned more about them, he'd help me improve them. He was, of course, true to his word in due time. In _that_ moment, however, I felt terrible for not even being fit enough keep up with him.

My throat felt disgustingly dry. I could feel heat radiating off of my head, then getting trapped in my hair where it turned into sweat and dripped down to coat my face. It didn't even help me to cool off at that point. It only made me want to peel the skin from my flesh in a desperate move to rid myself of the sticky, itchy sensations it brought.

I forcibly straightened my body and took a few deep breaths before attempting a sprint that I hoped would catch me up to them. Before I knew it, I was slumped forward with my hands on my knees, gasping for air.

"Excuse me? Sir Knives!" My new sister exclaimed as she stopped in her tracks and gripped her pillbox hat as the desert wind threatened to send it toppling from her head.

"What is it, Elendira?" Knives replied without turning towards her. Even without seeing his face, I knew his eyes were focused forward with a steady, pointed gaze. They almost always were, and there was no reason why they wouldn't have been then.

"I think Legato's feeling sick. _Again._ " I didn't need to see her roll her eyes. I could hear it in her voice.

I struggled to swallow - my mouth was so dry I had nothing _to_ swallow. My hands trembled and I felt all the blood in my body pool in my feet. I was about to either be sick or fall out of consciousness, and Knives was approaching me with a look on his face that was far from pleased. His eyes and mouth seemed frozen in their frown. I had already disappointed him, and I was only about to do so further. I instinctively ducked my head into my shoulders and scrunched my eyes shut.

To my surprise, he put his hand on the top of my head and seemed to be examining my face. He still looked unhappy, but now that I had a better view of him, I saw that he was more concerned than anything. "Bad reaction to the heat, it looks like. Thank you, Elendira," he said to my new sister before crouching in front of me. "We can slow down a bit. I know another path with more shade. It will take us longer, but we'll still get there, and you should be a bit more comfortable along the way. Also, your hair is far too long. It can't be helping. We'll cut it as soon as we get there."

I nodded and smiled. "You are most gracious, Sir..."

He blinked his eyes then crouched in front of me. "Heh. It won't do for you to fall flat in the sand." He then reached into his bag to pull out a ration bar and a canteen. "There isn't a lot of water left in that container, so take small sips. Finish it off in one mouthful and Nature will make you regret it."

"Yes, Sir. Many thanks, Sir."

He lifted his hand as if to reach for my shoulder, and I leaned forward without thinking. However, he withdrew his hand and stood up before he made any contact. I cast my face down to hide whatever disappointment it may have displayed. I took a sip of water and dried the sweat from my face with my shirt. "All right, there you go. Let's move on. You can manage, Legato," Knives said.  Just as he was about to turn away from me and toward the direction he intended for us all to walk in, he smiled at me - it was the most genuinely warm expression anyone had ever given me in my life. I responded with a firm nod, lifted my head, and began to walk beside him. I walked by his right side while Elendira walked by his left. I forced myself to maintain their pace, spurred on and fueled by my Master's kindness.

I would not soon forget his smile.


	4. From Wretched to Worthy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Legato's methods of coping with Knives' absence between July and Jeneora are explored. Needless to say, they aren't healthy because, well... it's Legato.

_"Do you think I keep you by my side just to shed dirty tears for me?"_

  
Every time those words echoed in my head, a chill surged through me and left an aching tension that pervaded every ounce of flesh on my body. I could smell Knives' blood and viscera, I could see them in my mind's eye - such things would usually have delighted my senses, had they belonged to anyone other than _him_. The shame and terror left over from that day would then sit inside my chest with the weight of a lead-rich boulder and without a clear route of release. Wherever I happened to be at the time, it would all but freeze me there. It consumed my consciousness to the point where I could do little but dwell on it.

  
I could temporarily regain my momentum by punishing myself or others.  I would cast blood or bile in the roles of my disgraces and intently watch them leave the body they came from - usually my own, but not always.  Once the deed was done, I would feel pure and irreproachable once more, at least until the memories of that day surfaced again.

  
When my mind was free, I spent most of my time on my plans to make up for my weakness by punishing the man who took my Master from me.  My only lasting source of solace was the fact that he hadn't taken Knives away from me for good.  However, being unable to see or speak with him was still nigh unbearable most days.

  
Whenever it was possible, I would visit the housing unit at Jeneora, where Dr. Conrad had placed Knives inside of a Dependent Plant for the purposes of his regeneration. I would speak to him. I would offer apologies and praise. I would inform him of current events - Vash's activities, the status of the Gung-Ho Guns, and other things of that nature. Usually, Conrad would accompany me on these visits. He considered me impulsive and didn't want me alone with Knives and the Dependent out of fear that I may try to get inside of their bulb or something equally idiotic. On the rare occasions when I was able to visit on my own, I would slip in with a bottle of some cordial or another.  I would sit and drink as if sharing with him despite his lack of consciousness.  Once the alcohol took hold, I would tell him that my heart was always with him, or that I would take his wounds on as my own if I could, or that I would heal him with love if it were possible. 

Sometimes, I would even sing to him.

  
Mostly, though, I would simply _apologize_ \- sometimes for hours on end.

  
Whether I was drunk or sober, alone or accompanied, the hollow echo within the housing unit would eventually remind me that he wouldn't respond to me anytime soon. I would then have to leave before the tears came - that same reaction that drove a wedge between us on that fateful day. Whatever else I did in this lifetime, I couldn't cry in front of Knives again.

  
When Conrad's data on Knives' physical state revealed to us that he could not hear anything from inside of the Dependent, I cursed everything but Knives' name.  I would still go to visit him despite my frustration, however.  This was partially out of devotion and habit, but I mainly visited him to strengthen my resolve.  Whether he was comatose or not, being in his presence would remind me of what I needed to do - punish his traitorous brother and become someone he could feel _proud_ to have for a companion, even if I was only human.

  
No torture I could inflict on myself or anyone else could ever give me the clarity I felt when I knew he was nearby.  Only then could I see myself becoming the person he needed by his side - only then could I clearly see my path from wretchedness to worthiness. 


End file.
